it, for the flap had lost its spring; and, though the noise was not
repeated, to the wind Rachel put it down, as she mounted the stairs at
last in a flutter that caused her both shame and apprehension. Her nerve
was going, and she needed it so! It should not go; it should not; and as
if to steady it, she opened the landing window, and spent some minutes
gazing out into the cool and starry night. Not that she could see very
far. The backs of houses hid half the stars in front and on either hand,
making, with the back of this house and its fellows, a kind of square
turned inside out. Miserable little gardens glimmered through an
irregular network of grimy walls, with here and there a fair tree in
autumnal tatters; but Rachel looked neither at these nor at the stars
that lit them dimly. In a single window of those right opposite a single
lamp had burnt all night. It was the only earthly light that Rachel
could see, the only one of earth or heaven upon which she looked; and
she discovered it with thanksgiving, and tore her eyes away from it with
a prayer.

In time the trunk was packed, and incontinently carried downstairs, by
an effort which left Rachel racked in every muscle and swaying giddily.
But she could not have made much noise, for still there was no sign from
the study. She scarcely paused to breathe. A latchkey closed the door
behind her very softly; she was in the crisp, clean air at last.

But it was no hour for finding cabs; it was the hour of the scavenger
and no other being; and Rachel walked into broad sunlight before she
spied a solitary hansom. It was then she did the strangest thing;
instead of driving straight back for her trunk, when near the house she
gave the cabman other directions, subsequently stopping him at one with
a card in the window.